The life expectancy at birth for someone in the Republic of Uganda is about 53 years. Only 2% of their population is over 65. (US: 78 years & 13%) So you're missing a bunch of old people who would be depressed, if they weren't dead.
Stigma means that you just don't see people with psychotic illness. People with mood disorders tend to self-isolate, so they're hidden too.
And mental illness isn't always recognised nor treated in Uganda.
> Mental illness does not receive the same attention as HIV/Aids or malaria, but is just as serious. A consultant psychiatrist at Butabika hospital, Uganda's national referral mental hospital, recently told The New Vision newspaper that 35% of Ugandans – about 11.5 million people – suffer from some form of mental illness, with depression being one of the most common. But barely half of these people seek medical attention from health centres in a country where people only associate mental illness with advanced and manic psychosis.
(I'm not sure that mental illness is as serious as HIV / AIDS. It is serious.)
But Uganda has made lots of good changes to their mental health treatment systems.
This wikipedia list shows mixed results for developing world nations for rates of suicide. Suicide isn't a great indicator for rates of poor mental health, but it gives an indication.
The life expectancy at birth for someone in the Republic of Uganda is about 53 years. Only 2% of their population is over 65. (US: 78 years & 13%) So you're missing a bunch of old people who would be depressed, if they weren't dead.
Stigma means that you just don't see people with psychotic illness. People with mood disorders tend to self-isolate, so they're hidden too.
And mental illness isn't always recognised nor treated in Uganda.
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/katine/2010/may/19/mental-health-u...)
> Mental illness does not receive the same attention as HIV/Aids or malaria, but is just as serious. A consultant psychiatrist at Butabika hospital, Uganda's national referral mental hospital, recently told The New Vision newspaper that 35% of Ugandans – about 11.5 million people – suffer from some form of mental illness, with depression being one of the most common. But barely half of these people seek medical attention from health centres in a country where people only associate mental illness with advanced and manic psychosis.
(I'm not sure that mental illness is as serious as HIV / AIDS. It is serious.)
But Uganda has made lots of good changes to their mental health treatment systems.
(http://www.ijmhs.com/content/4/1/1)
And there's a big "service user" group.
(http://www.mentalhealthuganda.org/)
This wikipedia list shows mixed results for developing world nations for rates of suicide. Suicide isn't a great indicator for rates of poor mental health, but it gives an indication.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_ra...)